forp:ign trade. 



217 



In cxplauation of the considerable importation noticeable via the Irkutsk Custom- 

 house in 18S7, it may be observed that this year was exceptional, a certain firm beginning 

 to operate unsuccessfully with brick tea. It imported an enormous quantity of this article, 

 which naturally did not at once find a buyer and which for three years produced a pressure 

 upon the normal trade in brick tea. A more just idea of the course of the tea trade through 

 the Irkutsk Customhouse may be formed by the comparison of the following figures upon 

 this question. They show the quantities of tea cleared by the Irkutsk Customhouse during 

 the period under consideration. 



Thus the large transport of brick tea in 1887 produced a depression until 1890, from 

 which time the trade in brick tea assumes a more normal character, and the importation of 

 this article steadily increases. 



From the figures quoted it is clear that tea is imported into Russia mainly, to the 

 extent of one-half of the total quantity, overland, or through Siberia and the Russian 

 Central Asiatic possessions. The cause of such preference of the land route, although compa 

 ratively more expensive than the sea route, will be explained further on. 



The main mass of tea is the Bohea which is brought to every part of the Empire and 

 is the more valuable article. Brick tea is consumed only by the Siberian, Kirghiz and Cal- 

 .muck natives of Eastern Russia, in consequence of which this sort of tea is brought into 

 Russia exclusively across the Asiatic frontiers and knows not the sea route. During the last 

 six years there was imported into Russia and cleared through the Customs brick tea to the 

 following amounts. 



Brick tea is imported almost exclusively via Kiakhta and the Irkutsk Customhouse, 

 very little being transported through the Russian Central-Asiatic possessions, in some yeans 

 the quantity scarcely reaching 1,000 pouds. 



However not the distribution alone of the consumers of brick tea influences the direction 

 taken by its transport; the latter is the result in a much greater degree of the tariff estab- 



